The present invention relates generally to improved methods and apparatus for register checkout. More particularly, the present invention provides a triangular turntable or carousel to improve the efficiency of bagging products as they are checked and the delivering of bagged products to customers for loading into their cart or for carrying from a store.
Register checkout stations are a familiar aspect of the shopping experience. Particularly in grocery and large retail stores, it is common to find an arrangement 10 in which a customer unloads a shopping cart or basket of items onto a conveyor belt 12 which conveys the items to a cashier or checker who then scans them utilizing a bar code scanner 14. The checker typically stands beside a point of sale (POS) terminal 15. The scanned items are then placed by the checker onto an inclined ramp or a second conveyor 16 which conveys them to a collection area 18 from which the checker, a dedicated bagger, or in some cases the customer then bags them.
FIG. 1A and the remaining figures are not drawn to scale; however, break lines 17 and 17xe2x80x2 and 19 are included in FIG. 1A to indicate that the second conveyor 16 and collection area 18 will typically be longer than illustrated so that it will be understood that arrangement 10 of FIG. 1A has a relatively large footprint and the distance xe2x80x9cdxe2x80x9d from the checker""s normal scanning position proximate to said scanner 14 and terminal 15 to the back of collection area 18 where scanned items collect is a relatively long distance requiring the checker to walk several steps to do bagging if not assisted by another individual dedicated to bagging who is able to bag as quickly as the checker can scan and check out the customer.
A much more compact arrangement 20 is shown in FIG. 1B. In the arrangement 20, the customer again places items onto a conveyor 22 which conveys them to the checker who scans them utilizing a scanner 24 and then places the items directly into one or more bags 25 and 26 hanging from a supporting rack or racks 27 located after scanner 24 and before an optional catch area 28. For the approach of arrangement 20, the checker can bag scanned items directly with little foot movement from a position adjacent scanner 24 and POS terminal 25.
However, both of the above described approaches require the checker to engage in a large number of potentially unnecessary movements such as walking from the scanning position to the bagging area for an arrangement such as the arrangement 10 of FIG. 1A, or lifting full bags, such as bags 25 and 26 from below the level of the counter up over and across the checkout counter and then placing them up on the counter for the customer, or even lowering these bags into the customer""s cart in an arrangement, such as that of FIG. 1B.
Two alternative arrangements 210 and 220 shown in FIGS. 2A and 2B, respectively, proposed an octagonal carrousel 212 for eight bags or a rectangular carousel 222 for four bags to replace the approaches of FIG. 1A or 1B. The eight bag octagonal unit results in a relatively large footprint, as the octagonal carousel 212 turns within a circle having diameter D. The checker also needs to frequently turn the unit to continue to feed bags into a position for loading. Also, a checker needs to turn the unit through several positions to rotate bags to a position where the customer can take his or her bag or bags. By way of example, the bag at position A in FIG. 2A has to be rotated all the way to position B before it can be readily accessed by the customer. Conversely, the rectangular four bag unit requires a 180 degree turn to get a new set of empty bags into position for loading. With this rotation, the bagged items are now placed somewhat inconveniently for unloading as the customer may wish to stay adjacent the bar code scanner to receive change, sign a credit receipt or the like. The 180 degree rotation is also unnecessarily time consuming and therefore is inefficient. Because of the large number of rotations occurring in a typical checker""s shift even a small difference may be significant.
A further retail store checkout device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,131,499 which is incorporated by reference in its entirety. The described device includes a rotating carousel for use in conjunction with plastic bags. The preferred form of the device of the above patent has six triangular compartments for holding bags.
Among its other aspects, the present invention advantageously provides a small footprint device which with a single clockwise or counterclockwise rotation of approximately 120xc2x0 carries filled bags to a position from which customers can readily load them into their carts while leaving a reserve of empty bags for the checker to continue bagging further items into. To this end, according to one aspect of the present invention, a triangular carousel is provided for three pairs of two side by side bags. These side by side bags allow the ready separation of products such as frozen foods, chemicals such as cleaning products and the like from other products which are typically separated from those products by checkers of grocery or other products. Large or bulky items such as a gallon of milk, large packages of pet food, a twelve pack of soda or the like can be placed on a top triangular surface of the carousel in a single motion as the checker swipes the item across the scanner. When a checker rotates the last bags of a customer""s items for loading, the checker can then immediately begin bagging items for the next customer in line while the previous customer loads his or her cart. Thus, the present invention may increase productivity, decrease customer waiting, and increase customer satisfaction through greater control of the bagging process.
These and other advantages of the present invention will be apparent from the drawings and the Detailed Description which follows below.